Wire Removing Apparatus and Method

ABSTRACT

An apparatus and method for insuring total removal of wire from a bale including a conveyor system for moving one or more bales, an automatic dewiring station, and a manual dewiring station. A bale is transported through an automatic dewiring station, and through a metal detector to ensure wire removal before the dewired bale is transported downstream.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for removingwires from baled material.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Raw material used in paper production (generally cellulose or recoveredpaper) is often transported in pressed bales held together by wires.These wire bindings are commonly made from metal although otherstrapping materials may be used. The wire binding the bales must beremoved before the bale reaches the manufacturing setting; however,manual removal creates risk of injury because the wire is often undertension.

We have previously attempted to automate the dewiring process asevidenced by our U.S. Pat. No. 8,160,748. The U.S. Pat. No. 8,160,748discloses a dewiring station including a robot with an end tool. The endtool on the robot moves to sense the location of the wires, cuts thewires, collects the wires and deposits the wires in a collection hopper.The end tool on the robot contains the apparatus for cutting the wireand a separate apparatus for collecting the wire. Other attempts toautomate the dewiring process can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,152,634;6,393,688; and 7,654,890.

Unfortunately, after the dewiring process is completed remnantsoccasionally remain in dewired bales. At the pulping stage any wireremaining can damage the equipment and delay the entire manufacturingprocess. Therefore it is imperative that all wire is removed during thedewiring process.

Therefore, the objective of the current invention is to ensure removalof all wire from a bale.

A further objective of the current invention is to develop a method todetermine if all wire has been removed from the bale.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is a method and apparatus for removing wires from a bale.

According to the invention the apparatus includes a conveyor system fortransporting bales through an automatic dewiring station, a metaldetector to determine if the bale is free from wire, and a manualdewiring station to remove any remaining wire. The automatic dewiringstation includes at least one wire cutting head. The automatic dewiringstation also includes a sensor system for locating the wires to beclipped and a wire removal device for removing the clipped wires fromthe bales.

A bale (generally cellulose or recovered paper) is delivered to theautomatic dewiring station. The bale is brought to the automaticdewiring station on a conveyor system. At the automatic dewiringstation, the wire is located and clipped with a sensor system and a wirecutting head. The wire is then removed with a wire removal system. Thebale is then transported through the metal detector by the conveyor. Themetal detector, using a controller, determines if the bale is free frommetal. A metal free bale is transported downstream while a non-metalfree bale is transported to a manual dewiring station. At the manualdewiring station a user inspects the bale and removes the remainingmetal. The bale is transported back to the automatic station and theprocess repeats. The present invention improves over prior art in thatcomplete removal of metal can be ensured.

The invention also includes a method for ensuring all wires are removedfrom the bale. The method includes bales passing through the automaticdewiring station where the wires are clipped and removed from the bale.The bale then passes through a metal detector to determine if the baleis free from metal. If the bale is determined to be free from metal itwill pass to the downstream manufacturing process. If the bale isdetermined to not be free from metal, it will be transferred, byconveyor, to a manual dewiring station where an operator will inspectthe bale and remove any remaining metal from the bale. The bale is thensent back through the metal detector and the operation of the methodrepeats itself until all metal is removed from the bale.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will becomeapparent to those skilled in the art upon a review of the followingdetailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanyingdrawings.

IN THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a top plan schematic view of the entire dewiring processshowing the automatic dewiring station, the conveyor system, the metaldetector and the manual dewiring station.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a schematic of the preferred embodiment of an automaticdewiring apparatus and method including an automatic dewiring station 4.A bale 2 is transported by a conveyor system 10 from the automaticdewiring station 4, where the wire is clipped and removed, to a metaldetector 6. The metal detector 6 is activated to determine whether anymetal remains present in the bale 2. The bale 2 is removed from themetal detector by conveyor system 10 and transported to amulti-directional conveyor 12. The metal detector 6 relays informationto the controller (not shown) and the controller relays information tothe multi-directional conveyor 12 which either; transports the bale 2straight to the downstream manufacturing processes 20, or if metal isdetected, transfers the bale 2 in a different direction towards a manualdewiring station 14. At the manual dewiring station 14, an operator willvisually inspect the bale and remove any metal present. The bale 2 istransferred back to the automatic dewiring station 4 bymulti-directional conveyor 15 and is processed through the automaticdewiring station 4 and the metal detector 6 again. The metal detectionmethod is repeated until the bale is free from all metal.

The conveyor system may include an additional multi-directional conveyor13. Multi-directional conveyor 13 can transfer the bale 2 to the amanual dewiring station 14, or to a second downstream manufacturingprocess 21. This allows for faster processing of dewired bales andallows for an alternative downstream processing station should amalfunction occur at the first downstream processing station.

The manual dewiring station 14 may include a lift mechanism (not shown)to allow the user to access the bottom of the bale 2 for wire removal.The manual dewiring station 14 is designed to permit manual loading ofthe bale 2 in the event of a malfunction of an automatic loader (notshown) or should the need arise.

The preferred embodiment of this invention involves an automaticdewiring station 4 and a manual dewiring station 14 however, theautomatic dewiring station could be omitted. In this embodiment, theinvention would only have a manual dewiring station 14, a metal detector6, a conveyor system 10 to insure that the bale is free from wire.

Any suitable conveyor system may be used provided that it permits thebale to move unencumbered through the dewiring process. Further, anyother automatic dewiring method may be used provided that it adequatelyremoves the wire from the bale.

The above detailed description of the present invention is given forexplanatory purposes. It will be apparent to those skilled in the artthat numerous changes and modifications can be made without departingfrom the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the whole of the foregoingdescription is to be construed in an illustrative and not a limitativesense, the scope of the invention being defined solely by the appendedclaims.

We claim:
 1. An apparatus for removing wire from a bale comprising atleast one dewiring station, a metal detector, and a conveyor system formoving the bale through the apparatus.
 2. The apparatus according toclaim 1 wherein the at least one dewiring station is an automaticdewiring station.
 3. The apparatus according to claim 2 wherein theautomatic dewiring station contains at least one automated robot with atleast one wire clipping device.
 4. The apparatus according to claim 1wherein the at least one dewiring station is a manual dewiring station.5. The apparatus according to claim 4 further including an automaticdewiring station.
 6. The apparatus according to claim 5 wherein theautomatic dewiring station contains at least one automated robot with atleast one wire clipping device.
 7. The apparatus according to claim 1wherein the dewiring station further includes a means for removing thewire from the bale.
 8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the dewiringstation receives bales with metal remaining from the metal detector. 9.A method for removal of a wire from a bale comprising: transporting abale along a conveyor system to a dewiring station; locating the wire onthe bale; removing the clipped wire; and, transporting the bale to ametal detector.
 10. The method according to claim 9 further includingthe step of scanning the bale to determine if any metal remains.
 11. Themethod according to claim 10 further including the step of transportinga bale found not to be free of metal to a manual dewiring station. 12.The method according to claim 11 further including the step ofinspecting the bale and removing any remaining metal.
 13. The methodaccording to claim 12 further including the step of transporting thebale from the manual dewiring station back through the metal detector.14. The method of claim 10 further including the step of transporting abale free of metal to a processing station for further processing.